I think (yes we all know about opinions) that there may be a direct correlation between how smart our soldiers are today and their inability to mentally cope with combat - like their peers did.

Grossman has plenty to say about how only 2% of the guys in combat are sociopaths and actually enjoy it. he also talks about the universal human phobia of killing other people and how difficult that is to overcome.

I think that our growing knowledge about the nature of the world, our peer humans, and each other makes it more difficult to survive the cognitive dissonance that combat forces on a human being. Let's face it the world is a much smaller place these days, we can't hide behind the old prejudices about Japs and Jerry or other dehumanizing terms. I don't mean to besmirch the Greatest Generation or any of those who fought before, but it's important to realize many of those guys never so much as set foot from their farms or local town when they were snapped up to fight in a truly foreign country. In many ways it was probably much easier to kill that evil furriner.

Contrast that with today. Children grow up aware of the world in a way that simply didn't exist before. We can communicate for free with people across the globe instantaneously (like this blog).

Simply put, the smarter we get the more we realize how dumb and futile war really is, how humans are more the same than different. It's a theory.

Sir,

I'd like to agree with your theory, because it makes sense. I've read Dave Grossman's books and seen him speak, and I believe in his approach. On the other hand, I don't believe we really have a higher PTSD/battle fatigue rate. Not because it isn't high, but because it always has been.

My reading of just about everything I've gotten my hands on about WWII has demonstrated that battle fatigue/combat stress was prevalent then. You can't read Leckie, Sledge, Overton, Manchester, etc without noticing how their experiences changed them forever, and how many of their buddies they saw crack up. The non-combat casualty stats bear it out as well. The social norms of the time caused most of them to bury it deep inside and keep it secret once they got back to their civilian lives. We may be more willing to talk about, and diagnose it, and the triggers may be different, but I'm not sure there is more of it.

As far as the Marines now vs then-I'm in agreement with Headhunter. If anything they are better, and the traditions and heritage we gained from the WWII Marines and our other predecessors are part of it.

R/

It is my understanding that overcoming the aversion to killing is the primary purpose of 'some' aspects of training, in particular the "ra ra, killing the enemy equals glory" propaganda (mind shaping?) aspects. I've speculated that ptsd rates could be reduced if combat was more realistically portrayed during the training phase, but, given the aversion, this course of action would probably reduce combat effectiveness. Realistically, in this context, doesn't mean using live ammo. Instead, it's "this is your best friends body after being hit with 17 .50 caliber rounds and parts of him are splattered all over your face." It seems like there is a disconnect between what is expected and what actually occurs, and rates would be reduced if that gap was narrowed.

Thoughts?

Interesting discussion on the difference between "The Greatest Generation," shaped by the Depression and today's Nintendo generation. Aside from the obvious, you have to remember that today is an all-volunteer force with fairly high entrance standards, versus back then when there was a draft and the Marines and Navy and Artillery and Air Corps and Airborne and Finance, etc., etc., were all skimming most of the smart guys, leaving the leftovers as trigger-pullers.
Having said that, the forces that went ashore at Gudalcanal and North Africa in 1942 still had a stiff leavening of the pre-war Regulars as well as the called up Guard & Reserve (keeping in mind those numbers were raided regularly as forces continued to expand) but by 44, that trand had Gen Marshall very worried about the quality of infantry recruits & replacements. Among other things, he killed the Specialized Training Program and sent those college guys to line units w/ mixed results; look up 104th Division and Battle of the Bulge, keeping in mind they were a rookie division with way too much of the battle line in front of them.
While simplified, think that Hunter has it right; see John Dowers "War Without Mercy: Race & Power in the Pacific War." which may be the best work out there on this subject.
Last, the slower pace back in WW II where many worked tehir way through camps and troopships with their buddies or at least peers (in many cases) may have helped some to start and sort things out. Too many of the WW II troops who saw combat still had PTSD, even if they didn't recognize it as such, and still got on with it, at who knows what personal cost to themselves and, in more than a few cases, their families.

My take: Realistic training helps you stay mission focused and continue to the objective, even though you have pieces of your buddy on you. It does not prevent or mitigate the nightmares or the grief. What's important is recognizing that those feelings are normal and to be expected, not some form of weakness. The troops need to know they can turn to their buddy, or their chain of command, and receive the help and support they need after such an event, not ridicule or apathy.

I've posted frequently on this subject - and written a soon to be published article on the matter. I think we are woefully inadequate in our manner of training and educating soldiers ahead of time. My potential solution addresses 4 areas: physical, mental, moral/ethical and military culture.

Physical means that soldiers need to not only be physically fit they must be physically educated, trained and conditioned for combat. They must learn the physiological affects of combat (tunnel vision, auditory exclusion, bowel evacuation etc.) and they must be realistically trained to fight through these elements. Live ammunition is actually the best inoculator for this. Lots of realistic live fire training and less 300 m range bullshit. 300 m range is a first step, not the only step (as many treat it). In keeping with the original posting I tend to think that the Squad Live Fire Exercise is the single most important thing people can do - and it isn't as hard or difficult as we make it.

I proudly tell the story of reporting to my first unit in Germany. I hadn't even officially been given my platoon, nor had I even met my first company commander when I showed up on a range where my future platoon was training. I was offered safety gear by the range OIC and I went down the SLFX with my (soon to be) soldiers. A week or so later my very first official event with my platoon was Table XI night fire with Brads and dismounts. Seriously we spend way to much time worrying about safety these days. Implement the proper control measures and start fricking training. (Read Tom Ricks The Gamble to see what happens when training goes wrong and how to deal with it - specifically regarding when then LTC Petraeus was shot during a Live Fire event - spoiler alert: he was evaced and they CONTINUED training.)The further answer to the live fire problem is the use of non-lethal training ammunition (sometimes collectively - and incorrectly - called Simunitions). These marking cartridges are the next best thing to real combat. Great method of stress inoculation.

Mental training requires that we prepare our soldiers mentally to be ready for combat. We give them mental tools like relaxation, mental imagery, breath control, visualization, goal setting etc. They need to be educated about the mental effects of living under that kind of stress for that long. And then they need to be trained on how to do so. (See references below)

Moral/ethical training means they need to understand the why of combat. They need to understand why we follow the rules of war and rules of engagement and escalation of force. They need to understand how atrocities not only undermine our war efforts but eventually destroy those who commit them. They need a frame of reference on what all this means to them - so that they don't come home physically well but mentally broken because of something they did downrange. This training needs to be provided, not by JAGs and Chaplains, but by the chain of command down to the lowest level.

Finally the military culture must support the idea that everyone needs this training and sometimes many will need help. There's still stigma in seeking help, much less now than perhaps ever before but still enough. I see the real problem isn't stigma in the form of fear of being a coward, instead it is fear that they are not supporting their comrades. This is the worst feeling that the modern soldier has.

None of these by themselves will fix the problem. They all have to work in concert, holistically (the term I like to use). Nothing I mention is new, indeed it has been used often since the 90s, much of it in law enforcement. But our military is woefully behind the times. Grossman has all but cornered the market on this stuff (with co-author Christensen and others). But still he only touches so many (forward thinking) units a year. (His 3-4 hr block of instruction is excellent).

Here's some resources that tell the story better than I can:

Artwohl, A. & Christensen, L. W. (1997). Deadly force encounters. What cops need to know to mentally and physically prepare for and survive a gunfight. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press.

Asken, M. Grossman, D. & Christensen, L. W. (2010). Warrior mindset: Mental toughness skills for a nation’s peacekeepers. Warrior Science Publications.

Grossman, D. (1996). On killing: The psychological cost of learning to kill. New York: Back Bay Book.

Grossman, D. & Christensen, L . W. (2004). On combat: The psychology and physiology of combat. Portland, OR: PPCT Research Publications

Kilner, P. (2010, February). A moral justification for killing in war. Army magazine. p. 55-60.

Murray, K. R. (2004). Training at the speed of life, Vol. 1: The definitive textbook for police and military reality based training. Gotha, FL: Armiger Publications.

If you want/need only one get the last (Murray) which does a great job of talking about/referencing most of this stuff.

yes infantrymen can do all those other tasks, but so can MPs, Artillarymen, Cooks, Mechanics, Tankers, and so forth. The argument that Infantrymen are special due to teamwork, well I would argue that teamwork is required from the fire-team, squad, all the way to Joint and Combined staffs conducting operational level planning. Don't know your background Kilgore, but hed downrange and look at some of the units out there training Afghans, Iraqis, building schools, and so forth, your going to find a wide range of MOS from 11B and 19K to 71L.

Ask a 13B to do infantry tasks, and they will do it...ask an 11B to fire a howitzer...not so much.
Where to mass your fires, and place to effects of artillary, air power, whatever, is an art. Your camparison of science of firing a system is a bit off the mark, with your reasoning, firing a M4 is a science and not an inherently intellectual exercise either. Manouver and the "Art" of combat happen in all brancehes, even logistics.

Really well said, it truly is a bit of "Art" and "Science". I do wish the Army would train all it's soldiers the way the USMC does, everyman a Rifleman first.

The question isn't even if Grossman or Aveni is right about SLA Marshall. Grossman tells the history to set the context. I for one don't give a rats ass if SLA Marshall's numbers were within a Standard Deviation of correct. Statistics and studies are always marked by inaccuracies and inadequacies - don't throw them out like a baby with the bath water. Learn from them.

What matters is how to counter the problems that come from combat. Grossman and his peers do a much better job of that. Aveni has some excellent points too. I'm not in anyway beholden to Grossman...but you need only look around and see that there is a big, wide military out there and he is almost the only guy providing this kind of education. (Indeed one of the points Aveni is correct on is that Grossman doesn't train anyone - Grossman does however educate them).

That's the fundamental problem, we're so fucking dense we don't even recognize that many of the answers are already sitting there waiting for implementation on a wide scale. Law enforcement broke the code on much of this stuff long ago.

Here's another area where Grossman is technically wrong, but still fundamentally correct. (From my article).

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"Unfortunately, [Non-lethal training ammunition] NLTA hasn’t been in wide enough use within the military. Grossmann and Christensen (2004) describe the use of NLTA as “large scale use” for law enforcement circa 1990 and U.S. Army and U.S.M.C. troops circa 2000 (p. 218). I wonder what constitutes “large scale use” because while some units might have access to these NLTA systems most lack access, or fail to use these resources. Indeed, it wasn’t until 2009 that the Army approved NLTA for safety material release. This means that these paint bullets were deemed safe for training. The Army is very late to fully integrate NLTA into training, and I suspect it will take many years to equip the force."
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Now I could argue that because I don't agree with Grossman and Christensen that NLTA has been in "large scale" use since 2000 in the Army and USMC that ALL their points are invalid. Or I could just say "Wow, we can argue about this problem or we can take a OBVIOUS solution and fix it." Aveni seems to like to argue for the sake of argument. Again, Aveni has lots of good points, but we haven't the time or resources for all this internal catfighting.

See Hunter, I think your missing the point of the post, that many do place Grossman on a pedestal, I see it all the time and none of those posts caused me to think that anyone was not doing that very same thing. Grossman's basic premise is that people do not want to kill each other and the viloence is social taboo, I disagree.

As to the point of Grossman vs Aveni, who was right or wrong, that was not really the point of the post either. I placed it up there to illustrate simply that Grossman was not the end all be all, Grossman has some points and so does Aveni but Grossman's main premise is way off in my opinion and hence I think so are some of his solutions.

"What matters is how to counter the problems that come from combat. Grossman and his peers do a much better job of that. Aveni has some excellent points too. I'm not in anyway beholden to Grossman...but you need only look around and see that there is a big, wide military out there and he is almost the only guy providing this kind of education."

-He is for the layman, but they are looking hard into the area of PTSD at the VA, they are looking at a million ways to treat the after effects of combat, they just do not know what is best yet. Let's be honest though, no matter what they find as the best Tx, we will still have the problem of getting guys to go and get the Tx, that will remain the biggest obstacle I think.
As for prior to getting into combat, i.e; that is really up to us as leaders to train the troops in an effective way to innoculate them as best we can from the stresses of combat via as much realism as possible: Live tissue training for medics and soldiers, realistic combat scenarios without bloody reflector suits or belts on, using loud and realistic sounds as a backdrop, having role players, getting REAL range time and scenario based shoot vs no shoot scenarios with live rounds, building up to land warfare fire and maneuver with live rounds and even CQC, etc...etc...Here is where Orgs as a whole fail in my opinion. The Army is especially guilty in this area, when given the choice between spending money on realistic training and a shiny high tech gizmo they will always chose the gizmo because people can get hurt or die in realistic training. This is just my opinion as to the why they do not do a good job of "innoculating" the troops before hand, I do not know the actual reason as to why they resist that. I am sure it is a combo of fear and of course bureaucracy, but a mix of what I posted above with a more grueling introduction in Boot Camp and AIT would go a long way I think to providing a sort of psychological prophylaxis for the guys.

"That's the fundamental problem, we're so fucking dense we don't even recognize that many of the answers are already sitting there waiting for implementation on a wide scale. Law enforcement broke the code on much of this stuff long ago."

-This is true and to be honest most of it was already figured out a long time ago in other wars, heck, TCCC is just a re-boot of what they did in Vietnam, some of our tactics in land warfare are just a re-boot from WWII, a lot of this info is sitting right out there I am sure as to how to prepare for combat and prevent the breakdown of the troop in and under combat conditions and prepare them for whent they come home as well.

"Now I could argue that because I don't agree with Grossman and Christensen that NLTA has been in "large scale" use since 2000 in the Army and USMC that ALL their points are invalid. Or I could just say "Wow, we can argue about this problem or we can take a OBVIOUS solution and fix it." Aveni seems to like to argue for the sake of argument. Again, Aveni has lots of good points, but we haven't the time or resources for all this internal catfighting."

-This is a discussion board, it is all we have time for ;) As to the solutions, they are working on it for the guys have PTSD, what to do prior is something that will be a harder fix, so how would you go about it? My end is easy for the pre-part, our training is realistic, we have loads of ammo and training time and money to support but what do you do for the average "joe" who cannot get that money for training and support? How do you argue for it? How do you make up for it? It always comes down to time-distance-money.

I have never heard or seen anything that supported that or the 20-25% number for any war outside of SLA Marshall and if you follow that link and other links on there I think you will find that he is not taken that seriously anymore.

I wonder if it was training or just that they did not need to fire their weapons as much due to the crew served weapons taking the brunt? Lots of things pop to mind after reading that post. Really curious now.
As to training, Hackworth talked a lot about that and how in Korea the difference between the Marines and the Army and how they performed under battle conditions and as POWs was vastly different with him giving a big nod to the Marines.

RVN SF VET: It's not just the training, but it's also the Traditions. Years of accumulated battle history and legends mount up, so that the Marine Corps ethos is thoroughly inculcated in every Marine, throughout his career. I've always believed that this (as well as unit camaraderie) is what ultimately carries the individual Marine forward in the most dire circumstances. I think in the Army, the airborne and the ranger units probably are similarly driven.